InSight IDC Cam First Light

InSight IDC Cam First Light

Nice first-light image from InSight’s Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC) camera courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech.
No word yet on what the ground under the lander is like, there is some rock by the looks from this view. One of the experiments needs to basically drill down into the ground but it cannot drill through rock, so we will wait and see.

Anyway, a very nice images indeed and click it to see a larger version.

Here’s the caption released by NASA: The Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC), located on the robotic arm of NASA’s InSight lander, took this picture off the Martian surface on Nov. 26, 2018, the same day the spacecraft touched down on the Red Planet. The camera’s transparent dust cover is still on in this image, to prevent particulates kicked up during landing from settling on the camera’s lens. This image was relayed from InSight to Earth via NASA’s Odyssey spacecraft, currently orbiting Mars.